Choice of View
by VisualIDentificationZeta
Summary: Jack/Samantha SUMMARY: When Jack's given given one shot, one opportunity, to have everything he's always wanted will he take it? Or will he blow it?


TITLE: Choice of View

AUTHOR: Vid Z.

PAIRING: Jack/Samantha

TIMELINE: during the last few minutes of the ep ' Point of View '

DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc of the TV show Stargate: SG-1 are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this fic. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: always wanted to read a fic where Jack decides to stay with Samantha in her AU, but found not one in all these years. So, after a few years of wanting to write it, but not actually having a concrete idea for the plot, here it is.

SUMMARY: When Jack's given given one shot, one opportunity, to have everything he's always wanted will he take it? Or will he blow it?

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"Please stay." whispered Sam.

"Samantha." Jack started.

"I know you're not him..." she quickly assured him. "But you also _are _him. You are the man I fell in love with. You may not have his memories, but you two have identical personalities. I'm not trying to replace him, but I know that I can't live without a Jack O'Neill. You may not have put this ring on my finger, but I still love you."

Her wide blue eyes pleaded at him and Jack found it increasingly hard to tell her 'no'.

Ever since she'd come to their reality he'd been having conflicting emotions. She was Jack O'Neill's widow, had been married to her Jack. She'd had with his counterpart what he wanted with her counterpart. There were lucky Jack O'Neills out there who were married to their Sam Carters, something he'd never have.

But there was another part that just wanted him to screw it all, say 'yes' and stay with her.

Over the past few days he'd gotten to know her enough to realize that this was truly Samantha Carter. No matter how different, the essence was still Samantha Carter.

The Samantha Carter he'd fallen in love with.

Yet, this one was a much softer, gentler, much more feminine version of Sam Carter from the one he worked with every day and now he knew why things in other realities had gone so swiftly, with them being engaged at the end of the first year in the first AU they'd encountered, and with them celebrating their first anniversary in Samantha's reality.

These two Sams were not military, they were much more relaxed, not so uptight and only-career-nothing-else-is-important oriented. And because they didn't have that military mindset, that religious clinging to regs as an excuse not to endanger their careers by getting involved with their COs, even if the base's COs would've given written permission, they'd been free to act on their feelings and not keep their Jacks at arm's length, far enough to keep him from getting too close, yet not too far so that he wouldn't move on and find happiness with someone else, for the vague and uncertain chance that maybe she would someday deem him worthier than her professional aspirations.

He knew had he been born in the reality with a civilian Sam Carter in it they would've probably been married by now too.

Yes, his Sam Carter was a good soldier, but it was exactly her being a soldier that didn't appeal to him for a romantic partner. Well, her admittedly now-diluted once-raging militant ultra-female-supremacist stance was what turned him off too. Even if she loved him in return, which he wasn't sure she did, he was sure there were aspects to him she didn't like as well, namely his highly classified blacked-out past. She was an intelligent woman after all and he knew she must've had at least _some_ idea what he'd done for their country during his time in Spec Ops and Black Ops (as part of his attached duty to NID and CIA).

But here was a Sam Carter who's being consisted of only the Samantha Carter the Woman, with the traits and parts he'd fallen in love with, asking him to stay with her, to leave behind his own world and help her rebuild hers.

She was offering him the very thing he was sure he'd never get with his Sam, even if she returned his feelings, for he knew Major Carter would always put her career before him and, even if she did somehow acknowledge her feelings for him and give him a tentative promise for the future, one day she'd get tired of waiting and dump him for some other man. Probably a younger man. And if irony really ruled the world she would dump him for her brother's (who hated the military) best friend.

Was he willing to risk having his heart broken for a vague chance, while he was right now being offered a sure chance

He knew it would not be a perfect relationship, her husband had been killed just days ago and she would first need to grieve for him and heal before being ready for another relationship.

But at least they'd have each other, much closer than he now had anyone.

Samantha would have someone there for her and his life would no longer be chokingly empty.

He was still not used to not having a wife and a family, not even after two years of loneliness, definitely not after 20 years of marriage and 9 years of having a family.

Every morning he woke up he still expected to find the warm and pliant body of his wife laying next to him and when he reached out, only to have his hand encounter thin air, his heart was yet again ripped apart by all-consumming pain. He then went to work, to his friends and the woman he loved, yet still carrying along for the ride that big gaping hole inside him.

He knew that, if he and his Sam would ever manage to get together it would be years still, if one of them, or both, didn't get killed first. Or, as mentioned, if Sam didn't find herself a younger man to give her the normal life without endangering her career. And Jack was too old to wait for that vague 'maybe' years in the vague, uncertain future.

Yet here was this Sam who wanted to be with him NOW, who still wanted him after being married to him for a year, after knowing all his quirks and flaws better than anyone else except for Sara. There wasn't really any choice to make...

He knew there was still much to do, give his retirement papers to Hammond, decide what to do with all of his possessions and the time to deal with that would come.

Later.

Now he had to alleviate the worry from the woman's eyes.

And being a man of action he knew of only one way how to do it.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

As she was drowning in Jack's kiss, Samantha felt a stab of guilt for not having told him her small secret. She'd considered telling him, but the last thing she wanted was to use it as a leverage against him to get him to do what she wanted, to pressure him into something _he_ didn't want. It had had to be his decision and it had had to be done without any pressure. On the other hand she knew that when he'd find out he wouldn't reject her or be angry at her for not having told him, he'd understand why she hadn't.

She'd wanted to tell her Jack, but the Goa'uld had attacked and after that she'd never gotten the chance to do so. Her husband had been killed without knowing there was a grouping of cells with their combined genes developing and growing in her womb, he'd died without knowing that a small part of him would live on in his child.

She knew Jack O'Neill, her husband and the Jack O'Neill who was kissing her gently right now and every other Jack O'Neill in all other realities out there and she knew that the Jack holding her in his arms would accept this child as his without protest and without resentment and would raise it as his as well.

But even through this bittersweet moment she couldn't help but feel remorse over having taking Jack from the Sam of his reality. But, she comforted herself, if Major Sam had really wanted Jack she would've done something about it, because Samantha Carter in every universe was a woman who didn't let anything stop her from achieving what she wanted. Had there been regs involved a Samantha Carter would've just found a way around them and not let things marinade as they had. In the end Samantha concluded that while the Major wanted the Colonel, she didn't intend to act on them.

With this thought in mind Samantha felt a rock fall off her chest, knowing she wasn't stealing the man from the Major, knowing he was a free man, free to be claimed by a woman who actually wanted him and who intended to act on those feelings.

The Jack she was kissing wasn't the Jack she'd married and she knew it hadn't been long enough to try to move on, she stil had to really process his death and mourn, but she knew that she'd never be able to move on from her husband if there was no Jack O'Neill in her reality, she'd never again find the reason to continue living, not without him in her life.

Because a life without Jack O'Neill was for Dr. Samantha Carter-O'Neill empty and not worthy of living.

And she would make sure to let him know for the rest of their lives just how much he meant to her.

She had Jack again and she wasn't letting him go.

THE END

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